Digital Waves

When it comes to adding something special to your garden while taking advantage of natural pest control, nothing can compare to birdhouses and feeders. These items will allow you to make the most of the natural wildlife that is in your area, including a natural form of pest control. The animals that will be attracted to your birdfeeders and houses will assist you in keeping the insect, worms, and other undesirable pests out of your garden, while giving you the pleasure of watching the local natural wildlife.

You can find birdhouses and feeders almost anywhere and they are also relatively easy to make; however, you will want to find a design that will match your garden and one of the best places to look is online. Online garden centers will give you a wider selection of unique and species-specific houses and feeders, so you will find the perfect fit for your outdoor space. You will also enjoy the convenience of being able to shop from the comfort of your own home.

Along with all of the conveniences and selections that an online garden center will provide, it will also allow you to compare houses and feeders to ensure that you will get the right one for your needs. You will also be able to obtain information on the right type of birdseed that will be required to attract the birds that you want to see in your garden. All of this information will be at your fingertips and once you have decided the exact birds that you want to attract, you will be able to find everything you need in the same place.

Online garden centers are able to combine convenience, selection, information and many other beneficial features, all for the comfort of their customers.

Cauliflowers have a reputation for being particularly hard to grow, however if you follow these simple steps you can be eating homegrown cauliflowers easily.

Preparation

One of the most important steps is preparing the bed, brassicas require a mildly alkali soil.  Buy yourself a PH tester and if necessary add a little lime to raise the PH to approximately 7.5.

Thoroughly dig in a general-purpose fertiliser a week before planting out (make sure this is at least two weeks after you added the lime).

Hardening off

If the seeds have been grown in a green house or using a propagator, ensure the seedlings are properly hardened off before transplanting.  If cauliflower seedlings are transplanted straight from a warm, controlled temperature environment to outside it can stunt their growth significantly.  Unfortunately with cauliflowers this can mean that the hearts never form at all.

Cabbage Collars

Cabbage (or brassica) collars prevent the dreaded cabbage root fly pupae from getting access to the roots of the cauliflower.  They can be bought cheaply and are highly effective.

Netting

Net your crop well, there is nothing worse than suddenly finding a plague of caterpillars eating their way through your cauliflowers.  The netting will also keep out the pigeons and other unwelcome wildlife intent on feeding on your prized crops.

Feeding & Watering

Cauliflowers are hungry crops and will do best with the regular addition of a high nitrogen fertiliser.  During dry periods ensure you water regularly, sporadic watering can cause of tiny golf ball size heads.

Slug control

Slugs can be every gardener’s worst nightmare, slugs particularly love the tender leaves of brassicas and given the chance, they’ll devour the hearts as well.  There are a number of methods of slug control, however Nemaslug Slug Killer is particularly effective for a minimum of effort.

Harvesting

As frequently happens when growing vegetables, cauliflowers have a tendency to all mature at the same time.  To prevent a glut, start harvesting the cauliflowers when still small (from about the size of a fist).

If you’re lucky enough to start a garden from scratch you can decide where you want things to be and how you will use the garden will influence this a lot. If you have small children then you’ll probably want a lawn and not a pond. If you’ve got a bad back and can’t bend down you might want raised beds to plant in. If you like sunning yourself you’ll want to make sure you find the sunniest spot in the garden to sit.

If you’re using the garden in the evening you need to make sure you’ve got the right amount of lighting. You can get solar lighting which can light path ways without the need for complicated electrical work which now requires a part p qualified electrician if you’re connecting to the mains. If you’re planning on a lawn then you need to think about the pathways onto it and make sure it’s all wide enough for you to get your mower on to. If you’re planning a barbecue area then where should it be? In the sunny part of the garden, but perhaps on a paved patio area, close to where you’ll be sitting? All these things need to be planned out in advance before you start work on your new garden.

What plants you like will also influence the design, just as the way the garden faces will influence where you put plants and what plants you can have.If you’ve got a shady garden then sun loving plants will only get disappointed in the shade and never do as well as they should.

If you’ve got a boggy garden then you might consider improving the drainage. This is one of the first tasks to look at doing. Then hard landscaping should be done next, the paths and patio areas, then features such as ponds, barbecues and raised beds. Once all that is done you will be able to concentrate on soil and planting up. Putting a lawn down is an easy task if you’ve read the instructions and done all the preparation prior to ordering the turf. Rolawn have plenty of advice on creating a lawn from scratch.

Making your garden perfect is easy – whether you tackle it as a big task or do it slowly year by year is up to you and your budget!